• Category 3

    Selected in 2016

  • Grades: pre k - 5
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 2,027,868
    Student Enrollment: 508
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 10.4%
    White/Caucasian: 18.3%
    Hispanic: 58.7%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 1%
    Asian: 5.5%
    Native American: 0.2%
    Other: 5.9%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:22
    % Reduced Lunch: 60.3%
    % ELL Learners: 30.1%
    Founded: 1961
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Kathleen Decker
  • CONTACT:
    1200 N 27th St
    Las Vegas, NV 89101
    702-799-7095
    clherbert@interact.ccsd.net
Walter Bracken STEAM Academy
Las Vegas, NV
Our concept is that the person closest to the decision is the one who should be making it. Teachers are empowered to teach!
Describe specific programs in place to ensure that families are involved in the success of your school and students.
We have consistent on-line homework for all students and some project based learning each quarter. Each grade level incorporates different activities into their curriculum where parents are invited to attend. Some examples include kindergarten’s family engagement day once a month, third grade’s multicultural holiday’s event and fifth grade’s Night at The Museum. We also have Stories and Snack and STEAM nights that get our parents on campus and engaged. Our parent volunteer center allows our parents to be on campus to help our teachers with the timeous task of copying, laminating and cutting. This allows our teachers to spend more time on instruction. Our parent volunteer center is invaluable to the operation of our school but also gives our parents the skills needed to be successful in a job they may apply for. We have hired many of our own parent volunteers for support staff positions. We also have the WATCH D.O.G.S program which directly impacts our students.

Describe the most successful activity your school has initiated to strengthen ties to your community.
The most successful activities Walter Bracken STEAM Academy has done to strengthen ties with our community are attending the Las Vegas Rotary Club meetings and establishing a parent volunteer coordinator. We have strong partnerships throughout our valley with the Rotary Club, Capital One, and many local companies which all stemmed from going to the Rotary meeting and sharing what is happening in our school, sharing our goals and what our needs are. Bracken reaches out to our community for support with our STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts, and Mathematics) programs and to promote career awareness. We also have a Parent Volunteer Center with a Coordinator who ensures that we have a steady stream of consistent volunteers to help the teachers and school.

Describe your philosophy of school change or improvement.
Schools will only change with a strong focus on climate, culture, consistency, and high expectations. We have seen our model replicated now at other schools and know that the structures and programs consistently implemented have a positive effect on student achievement.

What are your school’s top two goals for the next year?
Walter Bracken’s top two goals for the following year are to have our students academically grow by one year or more. We also have the goal to expose our students to careers and prepare them to move into higher level middle school programs in order to prepare them for college.

What is the single most important factor in the success of your school that others could replicate?
Our school has an empowerment model that incorporates shared decision making. The reason our program is successful is due to the teachers making decisions that will best impact their students. It is the understanding and application of the concept that the person closest to the decision is the one who should be making it. Because this is our model, we have made significant improvements and accomplished many achievements.

Describe the program or initiative that has had the greatest positive effect on student achievement, including closing achievement or opportunity gaps, if applicable.
The greatest program we have implemented is our "Series Explo" which has all students reading a series of books at a time. Our staff engineered this innovative program that has significantly increased the number of books completed by students as well as positively impacting students’ fluency and comprehension skills. Our 5th grade students achieved 90% proficient on our new SBAC test with no student scoring in the bottom quarter.

Explain how Title I funds are used to support your improvement efforts.
We use our Title 1 funds to help purchase our Parent Volunteer Coordinator, Support staff to open the computer labs before and after school to assist with homework help, sub days to hold Parent-Teacher conferences earlier in the year, technology to support our 1:1 iPad ratio and to buy book series.

Identify the critical professional development activities you use to improve teaching and student learning.
Our staff has ongoing professional development from each other. We focus on Cooperative Learning, Arts Integration, Technology, and Parent Involvement. At every staff meeting teachers share a best practice. They work in PLC groups weekly and collaborate with our two other STEAM academies. Each month there is an hour long professional development focused on one of the STEAM components. The staff also attends professional conferences, as well as, presents and shares best practices at national conferences. We believe in letting our teachers decide what professional development activities they would like to participate in and take ownership of.

Describe how data is used to improve student achievement and inform decision making.
We use a variety of sources for data and consistently measure all students with benchmarks for STAR, AimsWeb, Study Island, IXL, and state standardized assessments. We use the data to differentiate instruction and target skills for mastery for each child.

Describe your school culture and explain changes you’ve taken to improve it.
We have completely transformed the school into a highly engaging STEAM Academy. Complete with gardens, labs, outdoor learning areas, and 1:1 technology. We have established a strong culture of reading book series. Every student chooses book series of their interest. Through choosing book series we have found students are more motivated to read and develop a love for reading. We are a high achieving school with very high expectations for all of our students. We have a culture of shared decision making at Walter Bracken, where all stakeholders have a voice. We are transparent with our budget and allow our staff to decide how our funds are used to best meet the needs of our students.

Stats
  • Category 3

    Selected in 2016

  • Grades: pre k - 5
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 2,027,868
    Student Enrollment: 508
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 10.4%
    White/Caucasian: 18.3%
    Hispanic: 58.7%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 1%
    Asian: 5.5%
    Native American: 0.2%
    Other: 5.9%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:22
    % Reduced Lunch: 60.3%
    % ELL Learners: 30.1%
    Founded: 1961
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Kathleen Decker
  • CONTACT:
    1200 N 27th St
    Las Vegas, NV 89101
    702-799-7095
    clherbert@interact.ccsd.net